The Federal Government has vowed to arrest and prosecute the airline travel agents who cancelled the return tickets of 230 Nigerian football fans stranded after the 2018 World Cup Tournament in Russia.
The Nigerian Ambassador to Russia, Prof. Steve Ugba said this in an online video statement made available by the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr Tope Elias-Fatile in Abuja on Sunday.
Mr Ugba made government’s position known while addressing the stranded Nigerians in Moscow, Russia before their departure to Nigeria.
Over 150 stranded Nigerian football fans besieged the Nigerian Embassy in Moscow on July 12, for assistance at the end of the 2018 World Cup tournament.
The fans had alleged that their return tickets were cancelled abruptly by airline agents, resulting to their being stranded in Russia without any hope of returning to Nigeria.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on July 16, directed the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama and his Aviation counterpart, Hadi Sirika, to evacuate the Nigerians to Abuja immediately.
Sequel to the directive, a chartered Ethiopian Airline had on July 20 conveyed the 155 stranded Nigerians back to Abuja.
The envoy in the 21 minutes video, expressed gratitude to the president for ensuring that the stranded fans returned safely to the country.
He said that the Federal Government did not want the culprits to go free, urging the victims to produce any document they had to enable the government crackdown the agents.
Mr Ugba said that the nation was proud of the stranded fans to have made out time to cheer the Super Eagles in Russia.
He added that the behaviour of the fans and the Super Eagles had earned Nigeria lots of friends in Russia.
